The Ugly Truth

Sometimes facing the truth can be ugly. I researched this question, but not through Google because the ‘ugly truth’ about Google has come to light; censorship and giving you an answer they chose to provide you. Some of the articles I read were filled with mumble jumble, no facts, but plenty of opinions. Get rid of capitalism because woe is us. I find this hilarious but so apropos. Let me take you on a journey about a few Ugly Truths I found interesting.

Raising the minimum wage.

The ugly truth about this is that the people who favor raising the minimum wage are the same people opposed to capitalism. How can you advocate for increasing an individual’s compensation and yet, be opposed to capitalism? Capitalism is how one can raise the minimum wage to a sustainable income. Or am I the only one missing something?

The ugly truth is that an employer must be making money to raise someone’s income. A business can’t survive if they are putting out more than they are bringing in. Simple-minded people don’t get that. Example: If you are working for an employer for $15.00 an hour, your employer is paying you $15.00 per hour and paying the government in taxes. There is workmen’s compensation (insurance if you get hurt on the job), which amounts to thousands of dollars each year, unemployment tax, social security, etc.

The ugly truth is, an employee making $15.00 per hour will now work part-time because the employer is not only responsible for paying them but paying the following in taxes:

Payroll taxes. These taxes are an added expense over and above the cost of an employee’s gross pay. The employer portion of payroll taxes includes the following:

Social Security taxes of 6.2% in 2020 and 2021 up to the annual maximum employee earnings of $137,700 for 2020 and $142,800 for 2021

Medicare taxes of 1.45% of wages

Federal unemployment taxes (FUTA)

State unemployment taxes (SUTA)

Unemployment is almost entirely funded by employers. Only three states—Alaska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—assess unemployment taxes on employees, and it’s a small portion of the overall cost.

Unemployment is funded and taxed at both the federal and state level:

The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax is imposed at a flat rate on the first $7,000 paid to each employee. The current FUTA tax rate is 6%, but most states receive a 5.4% “credit,” reducing that to 0.6%. There is no action an employer can take to affect this rate. Some of this federal money is used for loans to states that don’t have enough in their U.I. trust funds to pay claims. If the loans are not repaid, the federal government raises that state’s employer tax rate.

The State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA) tax is much more complex. Employers pay a certain tax rate (usually between 1% and 8%) on the taxable earnings of employees. In most states, that ranges from the first $10,000 to $15,000 an employee earns in a calendar year.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Each state has its own finance method and its own calculation to determine the employer’s tax rate.

For the purposes of this article, know that the tax is based on the employer’s taxable payroll, the amount the employer has paid into the U.I. system, and unemployment claims against the employer’s account (called “benefit charges”). This is called an experience rating, and it can go up or down over time depending on the employer’s payroll and history with unemployment claims.

The cost of an individual U.I. claim depends on how much the employee made, how long they remain on unemployment, and the state’s maximum benefit amount. The average amount paid out on an unemployment claim is $4,200, but it can cost up to $12,000 or even more.

State governments get the money to pay claims by debiting the employer’s U.I. account (in states that require an account balance) or by raising the employer’s U.I. taxes. A reduction in the account balance may also cause a rate increase, as the ratio between taxable payroll and the account balance changes. Each claim assessed to an employer’s account can result in a tax rate increase in future years.

So, the real story isn’t the cost of an individual claim (though it can be significant). It’s the higher tax rate that will have a long-term impact.

The average claim can increase an employer’s state tax premium from $4,000 to $7,000 over three years. Not winning claims can easily cost employers tens of thousands of dollars annually, if not more.

FICA stands for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. The FICA tax consists of both Social Security and Medicare taxes. FICA taxes are paid both by the employee and the employer. Each party pays half of these taxes. Both halves of the FICA taxes add up to a total of 15.3%, broken down as follows:

Social Security employee contribution: 6.2%

Social Security employer contribution: 6.2%

Medicare employee contribution: 1.45%

Medicare employer contribution: 1.45%

The Additional Medicare Tax

Since 2013, an additional Medicare tax of 0.9% has been applied to unmarried employees who file an individual tax return and whose Medicare wages exceed $200,000. The extra Medicare tax applies to income over $250,000 for married taxpayers who file a joint return and income over $125,000 for married couples who file separate returns.

Re-thinking a livable wage for a job at McDonald’s is ludicrous. So the ugly truth is, you’re going to have to work two jobs to make ends meet if an employer is forced to pay out fifteen dollars an hour. Plus, prices will increase for everything if the minimum wage goes up where not even the homeless can afford a burger and fries.

See more information here

The Ugly Truth.

Nothing is free. This has nothing to do with capitalism. Jobs like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Chik Filet are supposed to be stepping-stone jobs. A job while still living at home with mom and dad, or in college or a trade school for extra money, not a position to raise a family. The ugly truth is, you need to strive for more.

The Ugly Truth.

Instead of schools teaching critical race theory, why not teach students about real life? A mandatory course in high school on what it takes to be your own boss. How much money needs to be made before seeing a profit? Or ask yourself what type of lifestyle do you see yourself living? The importance of birth control and not having a child early in life. Children are expensive. Break the family habit. Follow in your footsteps, not someone else’s.

The Ugly Truth.

Respect is earned.

Everyone does not deserve a trophy just for participation.

No one is entitled to free, higher education. If you choose to go to college, that’s your choice. If you want it to be ‘free’ (see above comment about nothing is free), then maybe join the military for four to six years, serve your country, and you will get an education paid for by the years of service you served. Again, this isn’t free; you worked for it by serving your country.

The Ugly Truth.

Every country had slaves, and some still do. Fifteen countries, in fact, still have legalized slavery.

Although modern slavery is not always easy to recognize, it continues to exist in nearly every country. In total, 167 countries still have slavery and around 46 million slaves today, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index.

India (18.4 million), China (3.4 million), Pakistan (2.1 million), Bangladesh (1.5 million), Uzbekistan (1.2 million), and North Korea (1.1 million) are at the top of the list for countries that still have slavery.

The U.S. Department of State defines modern slavery as “the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.”

The most common forms of modern-day slavery include human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, and the sale and exploitation of children.

Despite the horrible truths and reality of modern-day slavery, many will be shocked to find little to no action is taken by governments, as many turn a blind eye and pretend it doesn’t exist, or simply draw up plans to combat the issue but never get around to properly implementing their ideas.

The Ugly Truth.

Socialized medicine is not a good idea. Just ask anyone who lives in a country with socialized medicine. Here’s a dose of reality: Although Britons have affordable access to primary-care doctors, and everyone in the U.K. is covered through high taxes, they are subjected to extensive waiting periods for specialists, surgeries, and hospitalization. The fact is that many patients die waiting for treatment.

Rather than reject the basic free-market principles of the U.S. economy — as a 2016 Harvard University survey found most do — young Americans would do well to ask themselves why is it so many people from countries with socialized medicine flock to the United States for treatment?

Dr. Ileana Johnson, a Romanian-American writer, speaker, radio commentator, and author of Echoes of Communism (Lessons from an American by Choice), who lived in Romania as a child, remembers, “The system was ‘first come, first served.’ Everyone received a number and waited, as at a food counter, to see a medical professional. Sitting on the floor was forbidden; sometimes, we would be forced to stand for an entire day – occasionally until nightfall – before being examined by an overworked doctor, who supplemented his ‘egalitarian’ income with monetary or material bribes from patients seeking quicker access and better care.

After performing a perfunctory examination, the doctor would give us a prescription and send us away. The trouble was that the pharmacy in the nearby shopping complex had as little stock on its shelves like every other store in the country. The pharmacist, who had no ingredients with which to prepare the antibiotic the doctor had prescribed, would simply shrug and continue to earn his state income for doing nothing.”

Keep trying to compare our health care system with these socialist countries. They don’t hold a candle to our treatments. Does our system need an overhaul? Possibly; however, we certainly do not want to step backward in time. Affordable, like rarity, is man-made. Pressuring our government officials to lower life-saving medicines is where we need to start. Once a President lowers medication prices, it should be a crime for a successor to take it away.